I am a very happy EOS 50E user (and an EOS 500) of some four years. I take a wide variety of photos but included are some of small model aircraft, say about 150-200mm wingspan. I normally use the 28-80mm zoom at 80mm for these, which gives a focussing distance of say 350mm. Set on any kind of program and using the built-in flash, the camera makes a total mess of this! The depth of field required is (actually impossibly) large but the camera sets itself to f5.6 - which couldn't be any worse! Going from the guide number of 10 I now set the lens manually to f38 (which is possible at 80mm)and shutter speed to 1/20th which allows room light a bit. AF on a suitable point and the results are good! Why am I cleverer than the camera??? I would have thought that it could cope with semi macro work better than that. David

-- David Money (d.money@dmwl.co.nz), February 18, 2002

Answers

Cameras aren't that clever. That's why they make manual modes. The problem here is that the camera doesn't take distance into account when using flash so it sets the aperture wide to get the most possible distance for the times when you might want that. Canon & almost everybody else figures that's a more common situation than using flash for macro shots. They are right, by the way.

So without the Camera knowing that you are doing a close up picture, it sets a wide aperture just in case you might want more distance. Canon sets the defaults to the more common situations.

Actually, this is one place where Canon's older A-TTL system will work better than what you use now. You'd have to get an E or EZ series Speedlite and use your EOS 500 to make it work, but it would use it's pre-flash to determine distance & reflectance and then set an appropriately small aperture. This system has been abandoned in favor of Canon's newer E-TTL, EZ series Speedlites.

As you have figured out, manual mode is usually best when the situation is uncommon.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), February 18, 2002.

Thanks for your answer Jim. I thought that I was being a bit dumb with the EOS because my tiny Nikon AF600 point and shoot will take correct flash photos right down to 350mm minimum focus - and get plenty of depth of field, but then it does only have a 28mm lens.

-- David Money (d.money@dmwl.co.nz), February 18, 2002.

I don't know about your Nikon AF600, but a lot of point & shoot cameras adjust the flash exposure by changing the aperture based on the subject distance. Get up close and they use a very small aperture. Canon's A-TTL flash metering uses a modified version of this.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), February 19, 2002.

David, don't ever think the camera is smarter than you are. It doesn't know what you want. It's a big dumb adjustable wrench sitting there in your mechanic's tool box waiting for you to pick it up and use it. It's a great tool but it won't make the photo for you.

-- Lee (Leemarthakiri@sport.rr.com), February 19, 2002.